Two tours, two wins for Villegas

Golf Betting Lines

03/08/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Before Camilo Villegas arrived at the first tee Sunday, he called his mother in Colombia. "Tell the little bro congratulations and keep it up," he told her.

More than 1,500 miles away, Manuel Villegas was signing his scorecard at the Nationwide Tour's Bogota Open, a final-round 67 that earned him a tie for 15th place and a $9,900 check.

Hours later, Camilo Villegas holed a 19-foot putt on the last hole to win the PGA Tour's Honda Classic by five shots. His third PGA Tour victory netted him more than $1 million.

Believe it or not, there's some question as to which finish was more valuable.

As the elder Villegas was running away from the field at PGA National -- leaving Anthony Kim, Justin Rose, Vijay Singh and Paul Casey in his dust -- his native Colombia was hosting the first-ever PGA Tour-sanctioned event in South America.

Camilo Villegas played a big part in the landmark tournament. He flew to Bogota on Monday, taught in the junior clinic, played the pro-am, went to the dinner and the player party.

Then he hopped on a plane and returned to his new home -- he lives 15 minutes from PGA National -- to play in the Honda Classic.

In one whirlwind week, Villegas shined a spotlight on a part of the globe that has largely been neglected by the major U.S. golf tours, to their detriment. As the tours have expanded to locations in Asia, Australia and elsewhere, they have largely ignored Latin America, even as those countries continue to produce top-flight talent.

The cold shoulder couldn't have lasted much longer. Not while South America is six years from hosting the first Olympic golf tournament in more than 100 years.

"I believe it can be a huge step for Latin American and South American golf," Camilo Villegas said of the Bogota event. "I think the Nationwide should keep exploring other countries down there. I've had a chance to play throughout all of South America, and it's a beautiful place, full of great people, great golf courses, and the game keeps growing.

"I mean, we keep trying to do our best to represent this game and make it grow down there...and we all should keep doing the same things."

Villegas, 28, noted after his win that many Colombians would be watching the Nationwide event closely (48-year-old Steve Pate won in a playoff). But he also knew they would be following him.

He just hoped that the newspapers in his home country would split the page in half: equal space for him and the Nationwide event. Of course, that was unlikely.

The country's oldest paper ran a large picture of Villegas on the front page with the headline "Que buena onda" -- which, as far as I can tell, is akin to "That's awesome."

"Having the Nationwide event there was huge for my country," Camilo Villegas said. "I'm sure all of those guys are going to come back to the states with a totally different perception of my country. That's what I've been telling a lot of people. I mean, you've got to go there. You've got to visit. You've got to experience it. You've got to just see reality."

For a long time a lot was made of Villegas' potential to be a transformative young player. He could bash the ball. He also had a delicate touch. He worked hard and had the biceps of an Olympic swimmer. He had the Spider-Man crouch he used to read greens, a photogenic move that shutterbugs scrambled to capture.

But for two-and-a-half seasons on the PGA Tour, and one on the Nationwide Tour, there was something Villegas hadn't done: win a tournament. That all changed when he won back-to-back events during the FedEx Cup playoffs in 2008, against two stacked fields.

A year before that, in a column on Sept. 9, 2007, I wrote that the media should "refrain from lauding Camilo Villegas until the young Colombian star does something laudable."

We are certainly past that point now.

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NFL Football Sports Betting

Two playoff teams from 2007 take center stage on the NFL Network Sunday night in a Week 2 NFL betting match-up when the (0-1) New England Patriots betting head south to Florida for a contest with the (1-0) Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

New England HC Bill Belichick couldn’t care less about the way his team plays in the preseason. With a chance to tie last week’s game with the Baltimore Ravens betting, He elected to go for the two-point conversion and outright victory. The conversion failed, and the Pats ended up falling to the Ravens by a 16-15 final count.

New England rolled off twelve unanswered points to give it a chance at securing the victory, but it never threatened to cover the 3.5-point spread. NFL bettors saw this one coming, as they bet the Ravens down from +6 to +3.5 as the week progressed. QB Tom Brady didn’t take part in the Patriots first preseason clash, but could see action this weekend.

His three replacements all put up embarrassing numbers. They went a combined 17 for 33, and threw three interceptions and no touchdowns. The New England defense was encouraging, as they held the Ravens to 2/12 third down conversions and surrendered just ten first downs. That ‘D’ should be bolstered with the addition of former Bucs and Denver Broncos betting safety John Lynch, who could make his Patriots debut on Sunday against his former mates.

HC Jon Gruden had to be impressed with the way his Bucs played on both sides of the ball in their dominating 17-6 victory over the Miami Dolphins in Week 1’s NFL pre-season betting action. Bucs bettors were quite happy with the effort, as they made a mockery of the fact that they were underdogs in the game.

The logjam at the quarterback position didn’t get any easier to separate for Gruden, as all four of his QBs had positive experiences in the first exhibition of 2008. The four combined to complete 28 of their 40 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown, and that was without starting QB Jeff Garcia in the lineup.

RB Michael Bennett had 19 carries and four receptions, totaling 90 yards and a touchdown. Expect to see more of Bennett, Kenneth Darby, and Earnest Graham, as they all compete for playing time with Warrick Dunn in the backfield this season. Defensively, the Bucs recorded four sacks and held the Fins offense in check all day.

First round draft pick Aqib Talib was impressive in the secondary, recording a tackle and two pass defenses in his debut. Don’t be surprised to see Talib in the starting lineup opposite Ronde Barber for the Bucs in ’08.

The betting trends suggest that NFL bettors should be backing the Bucs in this intra-conference exhibition.

These two teams hooked up last year in Tampa Bay, with the Bucs winning that game 13-10. The Buccaneers have only lost one preseason game at home dating back to the beginning of the ’05 preseason. The Patriots have had a mixed bag of results in their recent exhibitions. They have gone 2-2 ATS and SU each of the last three years.

New England currently sits as modest 1-point favorites in this preseason showdown with the ‘total’ now sitting at 34.5.

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